


Four Seasons, Epilogue

by Dagny_Fischer



Series: Four Seasons [5]
Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: Birth, F/M, maleval
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 07:33:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14159859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dagny_Fischer/pseuds/Dagny_Fischer
Summary: Due time arrives.





	Four Seasons, Epilogue

“Shh, no... Just leave me quiet here... Don’t call the pixies...”

“Mistress, I have no idea of what to do, I can’t bring Aurora here in less than an absurd amount of time, and I won’t let you here to hatch alone!”

“Diaval, it’s just starting... We can have hours of labor ahead. Don’t worry.”

“Don’t worr... Mistress, do you know what a raven does when his hatchlings are hatching? Do you?”

She could only smile at her mate’s anxiety. She had no experience with actual birthing in her race, but knew the theory, had assisted more births in the Moors than any midwife of Aurora’s human kingdom could ever have, and, well, for good or for bad, she wasn’t afraid of pain. Nothing could hurt her more than the pain she endured in her past. Besides, after having made peace with the idea of maybe delivering a baby boy, everything else was fine.

Now, Diaval?

He would sit on her belly if allowed, if something suggested it would better the progress of the pregnancy. If on her behalf or the baby’s, it was uncertain.

She would not cope with his fussying, though.

“Well. Then be a good raven and tell Balthazar to ask Aurora to come _when and if_ her schedule allows; after, and _only_ after this is done...” She stopped midsentence to breathe deep during a contraction. “...Summon the three pixies you know. They’re a bunch of trouble, but I must reckon they’re quite renowned healers. Not that pregnancy is a disease, but they’ll know what to do in any case.”

Maleficent didn’t mention that there was, of course, a small probability of problems in any delivery, be it of humans, fae, trolls, pixies, horses, cats, whatever mammals, and also amongst non-mammals like ravens, treefolk, flying lobsterfayries or dragons. With the baby being a hybrid of fae and whatever shape her beloved raven was in when she conceived, nothing was certain, even if at least they had had no intimacy with him not in human or fae shape. What made her wonder about the nature of their offspring. Another deep breath and she settled on the certainty that soon she would have every answer she could crave for.

Knowing her mate as she did, Maleficent didn’t mention any possibility of problem with the delivery, else he would not leave her side, and all she needed right then was _quiet_.

Diaval caressed her face and belly, adoring eyes on hers, and kissed her brow.

“I’ll go. I don’t know if Balthazar is faster on his own limbs or on a woodboar, but he’ll know. I know where the Trouble Trio dwells, I’ll fetch them. And you...” He tilted his head birdishly and smiled like the fae he shifted into sometimes. Special times. “I know you’ll be all right. Is there anything I can do for you before I leave? Fetch you some water, a blanket, berries, anything?”

The raven-man had made peace with his mate’s autonomy, hard as it was for his nature. But his nature was that of a raven, and purely a raven he wasn’t anymore. It was _hard_ for him to leave his mate during such a meaningful time.

“All I need, Diaval...“ She smiled. “Is to know you’ll be back to me soon. All the rest I know already. We’re going to be fine.”

She caressed her belly, grabbing Diaval’s hand to run it along the taunt skin.

“Don’t...” He leant down and kissed her softly. “Don’t curse anybody without deliberating with me first, all right?”

Maleficent laughed, a hand on her abdomen and the other on Diaval’s cheek.

“Not a chance, my love! Now, go, fly with the wind!”

 

* * *

 

Diaval left a water bottle and a dish of dried fruit on her bedside, anyway, before leaving.

The water was gone when he flew back, but the fruit was untouched. The pixies shooed him away when they reached Maleficent’s bed, but he could shoo them away with his wings effectively, even not using his human shape, so they gave up soon.

“Why... why are you sweating and whining this way? Are you all right? Is the hatchling all right?”

She drew in a deep breath, but a smile turned up the corners of her lips.

“There are places easier to get in than to get out, birdie.”

“I wish I could help... a raven can always peck the eggshell, but what can I do now?”

Maleficent laughed at the mention of pecking eggshells, grateful for a break between the contractions. It wasn’t unbearable, but every now and then her belly got tough, a burning sensation in muscles she never used before. Even if not unbearable, there was no need to hide what she felt, and one or another whimpering escaped her lips eventually. Because _life_ isn’t silent.

“Stay by me.” Maleficent answered, simply.

“You can massage her back, neck and shoulders, if we are _really_ to have a male attending a birth, I mean.” Knotgrass faced Diaval with all her bad temper, but his own temper was too good to be tainted by her.

“Oh, and you can say sweet things to her so she feels better!” Thistlewit added her own contribution, a silly but earnest smile on her face.

“We’ll tell you when it’s crowning; then you can sit behind her on the edge of the bed with your arms around her torso and your thighs under her own so to support her, leaving her… erm… bottom… free to deliver the baby.”

It was the first time in his life that Diaval heard Flittle say something sensible, so he deemed it important.

Why were non-birds so complicated to hatch?

 

* * *

 

Aurora was delighted by the ride Balthazar gave her, reaching the cottage of her childhood and early youth in such a short time. Phillip was worried, but what did he know about the Moors and its inhabitants? Poor innocent boy…

“Godmother! Godmother!”

Her enthusiasm was silenced by a stern Knotgrass with a finger on her lips signing silence was to reign in there. Fretting that something could have gone astray, the young queen walked carefully closer to the only mother she ever knew.

“Godmother?”

“Maleficent is sleeping right now.” Thistlewit informed her in a whisper. “But the one you want to meet is right over there!”

The blonde pixie covered her laughter with a hand, but her merriment was hard to conceal. Aurora had a big smile on her face even before reaching her sibling’s sleeping room, her old patchwork bedspread cushioning her former crib, but the new owner of said crib was sleeping peacefully with a belly full of mother’s milk against his father’s chest.

“Godfather?”

Aurora whispered, afraid to wake up the tiny being nestled in Diaval’s arms.

“Fledgeling?”

He answered in kind, a proud smile on his face.

“How… How did it go?” She asked, disguising her wish to know the gender of the baby.

“Ah, erm, well… Your godmother was scolding me for a while…”

“Seventy-nine minutes!” Corrected him Knotgrass.

“…All right, Maleficent was scolding me for seventy-nine minutes because why, oh why would the offspring of a raven be that big, when this little piece of love decided to glide his way down, and…” Aurora could see he was shaken when he looked up to her, and that it couldn’t be any other way. “And this is your little brother, Aurora. This is Nox.”

Diaval peeled the blanket from his son’s back, showing his developing wings covered by unmistakably black down of feathers. His hair was a wisp of raven-black lint, swirling around the marks of where his horns would sprout in due time. His skin was pinky, so thin one could see bluish veins underneath.

“Nox.” Aurora tasted the sound of the name on her lips. “Sounds strong. I like it. What does it mean?”

“Nightfall.” They both turned their heads to Maleficent’s voice behind them, walking slowly to an armchair beside the cradle. Aurora helped her to sit down and arrange her wings over the backrest, as Diaval had his arms full, literally.

“We wanted a name to match yours, of course. This was the best we found.”

“Matching, yet opposite. This was brilliant, godmother!”

“Your godfather’s idea, actually.”

“And… What do you think about having a baby boy, godmother?” Aurora asked innocently, feigning ignorance on how this subject had affected the fae months prior. “Isn’t he lovely?”

Maleficent looked at her son sleeping in the arms of her mate, and a small smile graced her face. Her pensive eyes glistened with golden light, and she answered with all her soul.

“Once I was betrayed and my heart was broken. I believed there was no such thing as true love; actually I was sure there wasn’t any kind of love, that it was an illusion people liked to believe in. Then a certain raven came into my life and showed one doesn’t have to say ‘ _I love you_ ’ to treat you with love. Then _you_ came into my life and taught me love has more faces than the one sold by faerie tales. And then…” She looked up at Diaval’s eyes, and all her love was explicit in that look. “Then Diaval, always my loyal Diaval, made clear love was something I had the right to, if I only allowed it into my life, if I only... Now Nox came and... and I can love him _wholy_. It’s love without a past but the fact that he is the result of love. It’s love bound to bring more love to the world, because he will grow up fed with love and taught of love and surrounded by love. I must thank you both for it. In a way, I should even thank Stefan, because if it weren’t for his actions I wouldn’t have you two in my life. You three, actually. I...”

Her eyes glistened with tears threatening to flow, and Diaval found the sweetest way to save her. The raven-man placed Nox in her arms and knelt beside her, a smirk on his lips.

“Mistress...”

“Yes, Diaval?”

“Stop rambling and kiss me!”


End file.
